An update

I'll keep you waiting for details about Ace, just for fun, I think :-)

An update about the others first.

Buttie has been backed and ridden away! Well, some friends the girl who had George and her sister, came for lunch last week, half term. The smaller of the two 13 year old twins asked to sit on him, so we saddled him up and I led her up and down the yard. He didn't care two hoots. It was a great laugh. She isn't heavy, but she is tall, and her feet were nearly dragging on the floor. I should have a photo or two soon.

Radar has had a fantastic season hunting and jumped at least three hedges that were six feet high. He is exciteable, he pulls, he never, ever, stands still, but boy does he jump, or what! It's all the more amazing because he was kicked back in May and if Jazz had had shoes on his leg would definitely have been broken. As it is, he has huge damage to the tendon running down the front of his leg to his knee - check the old blog for the photos and you can see the eeenormous lump. It is amazing that he is sound, and only thanks to how little they actually use that tendon and how tough he is. It is still reducing in size a little at a time, and probably won't reach its final size until it's a year old. It was a huge worry for weeks but he was only unsound on it for a couple of days, he was amazing.

Jazz, well we competed unaffiliated elementary (U.S. level 3?) in an affiliated competition where the judge did not know we were unaff. and scored 65 and 63 (so we would have earned points). So we went affiliated and everything fell apart. Sonia made a few of serious mistakes with him. In an effort to get his mouth more still so he would score better, she made me change his bits so that he had more room for his tongue. He didn't respect the new bits and set against them very easily. She also made me hold the reins so that I had pressure on the snaffle but not the curb, because this is apparently what dressage judges want to see. Well they may want to see that, but they want to see a horse under control first, and Jazz just does not respond to the snaffle bit alone, without using the curb. Thirdly, I was at her place for a lesson and she allowed me to lose my temper with Jazz and start pulling him about. I don't mean that it was her fault I lost my temper, it was mine. But she did not stop me, she let me carry on and she just watched me. Worse, when the lesson finished (with ME having got myself back together and tried to get what I wanted a different way, which worked) she said that we just "have to go through this" with him at this stage, which I was very unhappy about. I can lose my temper very well by myself, I don't need to pay someone £35 to watch me do it! I haven't been back since.

It took me three months to put it all right again, including getting him back on ulcer medication. I had to insist on total obedience, and I had to change pace or direction every few strides to make him realised that he had to keep listening to me ALL the time, not just when he felt like it. Now I am planning to take him out competitively again soon and see what happens, but his work on video is looking superb. I have learnt an awful lot from riding Ace, who is naturally uphill and VERY forward, about how to keep Jazz in front of my leg. His whole action has speeded up, with much more "snap" in his hind legs.

Campero, I gave as a Christmas present to the people who I had loaned him to. They adore him. She came half way up a regional competition last weekend, 11th out of 22, and she has only ridden four dressage tests in her life. He is extremely well and has feet like iron. He can walk across anything, it is great to watch him.